Finally a McFamily
by merderjunkie
Summary: My version of the opening scenes of 8x01, because the real ones are too painful for me to watch. This is a one-shot with LOTS of MerDer and Zola family fluff and cutesy things. Enjoy!


What Should Have Been

**A/N: I wrote and published this idea before, but it was absolutely nothing like this. It was a lot shorter, and I definitely did NOT like it this much. ****_This_****... I could get used to writing like this. **

**Anyway, for those of you who haven't read the previous version of this story, it's basically how I would have carried out the first scenes of 8x01. Enjoy!**

* * *

Derek, swinging his key ring nervously around his index finger, approached the glass door of the house that had quickly become his home. Even when he was with Addison, the house on Queen Anne's Hill had been home to him. Home was simply where Meredith was, nowhere else, and always had been.

He twisted the keys in the lock, although he felt somewhat as though he were trespassing. This was stupid. They were married, this was his house, too. But if they'd fought the night before, if she'd said horrible, terrible, awful things to _him_, would he want her at the trailer begging forgiveness?

He ignored the obvious answer.

The kitchen was lit softly with the cool light that fell through the windows as if by accident, and Derek was comforted by the familiarity of it all. His kitchen in New York with Addison had never felt like home. He couldn't lean on the granite countertops without creating unseemly condensation. He couldn't spill coffee on the table and simply wipe it up without a fuss; what if it had damaged the stain? No, this was the place for him.

He poured some water into the pot and started to scoop in some grounds.

* * *

Meredith stumbled down the stairs, lit only by the early morning sun of a more grey color than traditional yellow. Then, this was Seattle, and sunlight, when existent, was weak, so Meredith had learned to take what little brightness she could get in this city. It occurred to her how cynical she sounded, by comparison with her thoughts as of late, but last night's events had certainly changed her perspective. There was a sleeping baby upstairs in the temporary crib in their (her?) bedroom, and her husband was AWOL. Yeah, she definitely deserved to bask in a few minutes of cynicism and dark-and-twistiness.

The living room was dark, though, due to the closed curtains not present at the glass door in the foyer. It didn't even occur to her to wonder why it was already wide open – she was too tired.

The kitchen was not much brighter, despite the sunny yellow walls and homey white cupboards, and the light filtering through the windows. All she registered was the corded phone on the wall – her destination.

* * *

Derek's coffee was cooling quickly as he sat at the table, but he suddenly found himself too nauseous to even touch it. He knew he'd crossed a line the previous night; Meredith was sensitive about what kind of mother she would be, and the truth was that he hadn't meant those things at all. But Meredith could be so sensitive, there was no doubt as to how she'd taken it.

He pulled his phone from his pants pocket and unlocked it, wincing at the flashing message, "Sixty-Three New Messages From Mer". Not being able to handle the guilt anymore, he pocketed the device again and turned back to his coffee – briefly – before once again turning up his nose and opting instead to bury his head in his hands and inhale the aroma of fresh-ground beans, hoping to absorb the caffeine by osmosis.

How had he turned his marriage – the one thing he treasured more than life itself, the thing he'd worked so hard for over the past years, the thing he'd poured his life and soul into – into _this_?

* * *

Meredith fully entered the kitchen and crossed the well-lit room, focusing only on the fixture next to the sink that would allow her to call... someone. Anyone. There was nothing else she could do to keep herself together. She wanted Derek. She wanted to be able to fold herself into his arms and cry. To just be tired and have him nuzzle her head and tell her it would be fine.

But she couldn't have that.

So instead, she focused on the phone.

_Get to the phone, Meredith, get to the phone._

Just when she was closing in, she heard a rustle from behind her.

* * *

Derek barely registered the sound of the door swooshing open, but he did hear the footsteps crossing the room. He lifted his head from his hands, mentally cursing himself for not locking himself in the bathroom instead of waiting in such a conspicuous place. He wasn't ready to face her yet. He didn't have a brain full of pretty words at the ready. All he had was a pile of neurons singing, "I'm so sorry."

That wasn't enough.

She seemed to be ignoring him, as she passed directly by him, her gaze fixed on the phone. Not a good start. He knew he had to do something, that they couldn't continue on in silence until one of them died or until she developed her mother's disease and he had to put her in Rose Ridge – Oh, bad choice of thought process. He shook his head, putting the idea of Alzheimer's out of his mind entirely.

Finally owning up to the fact that one of them had to be the first one to acknowledge the other's existence, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Good morning."

* * *

"Good morning." The voice registered with her as familiar, but she couldn't quite place it. _Phone, phone, phone, phone, phone._ Alex, maybe? Jackson? Not Derek, she would recognize Derek. Besides, Derek didn't want to talk to her.

"Good morning," she answered neutrally, not wanting to give anything away. If the entire hospital hadn't already heard about the... incident, they were not going to hear about it via her breaking down in sobs on the kitchen floor.

"What are you, ahh, doing?" the voice asked. God, why were her friends so nosy?

* * *

"Good morning." So she wasn't ignoring him, she was just ignoring the problem. They would be okay, he tried to convince himself. They would be okay as long as she didn't utter the word, "fine".

"What are you, ahh, doing?" he asked, treading carefully. He knew he was walking on thin ice here, and the littlest misstep would send him flying out the door and landing on his ass.

She set the phone down on the counter, and for a moment he thought she was going to yell.

But she didn't.

"I'm calling Izzie. I know it's stupid, and she probably won't pick up, and even if she does, the chances of her wanting to come back here and risk running into her ex-husband are pretty slim, but I don't see any other choice. Because I have a sleeping infant upstairs, and all the ready-made babysitters that Derek and I thought we'd be getting when we took in all these strays…" Wait... Derek? Why was she referring to him as... wait... sleeping infant? His eyes were widening by the second with her mile-a-minute words, but she showed no sign of stopping for his sake. Of course she didn't, she didn't even seem to know he was him. He wondered briefly who she thought he was before he realized that the wondering was making him miss out on a good chunk of her spiel. "...Won't be back until at least late morning. And I have to work, too, so that I can afford to _feed_ said sleeping infant. And while I'm sure that if Derek were here, he would have a million better ideas than calling Izzie, he didn't bother to pick up his phone when I called him fifty times last night, so I'm not even going to bother anymore. Seriously, I know I screwed up, but where does he get off just not answering _that_ _many_ phone calls?! Doesn't he think that if I'm trying THAT hard to reach him, that it might be just a little important?! I mean, seriously, we're supposed to married for God's sake, and – " Her eyes seemed to widen a little, and her sentence cut itself off abruptly. Derek swallowed, hard, as her finger raised slowly to point at him menacingly. "You."

* * *

Meredith's face flushed red and she felt her eyes start to bug out of her head a little bit as she realized that her husband was sitting at the kitchen table, holding nothing but a cup of coffee, looking intently at her and waiting for her to finish.

Seriously? He couldn't have at least brought flowers?

She swallowed hard and raised her finger to point at him. "You," she said quietly. She knew she was being a little melodramatic, but she deserved it. Meredith Grey, the woman who never thought she'd be a mother, had spent the previous evening taking care of a baby who seemed to have a sixth sense and know that something was wrong. It wasn't Zola's fault, oh no. It was Derek's.

"You... actually called... sixty-three times." Derek held up his phone, which was still flashing the message across his home screen just as urgently as Meredith had been to reach him the previous night. She smiled despite herself at the thought that his phone was on her side.

* * *

Derek gulped as he set his phone down on the table. The smile warming her face by a couple degrees was obviously not directed towards him, not to mention nowhere near genuine. He knew a genuine Meredith smile when he saw one; they'd been present more and more often with the arrival of "married, happy her". And this was not it. He'd screwed up this time, and he was about to pay, and pay large.

"I have three things to tell you. You will not interrupt until I'm finished. Nod if you understand me." Her voice was scaring him – it was dangerously quiet, so much so that he was straining to hear. Not only was it lacking in decibels, it was completely void of tone. She sounded like the robotic voice that the Anonymous hackers used in their YouTube videos. Meredith, when she got mad, spared no energy and just went off on him. This was an entirely new kind of Meredith mad, and one that he wasn't sure he was prepared to deal with. He nodded slowly to appease her, accepting that the storm was coming whether he was ready or not.

* * *

She started spewing off the speech that she'd been preparing, editing, and revising since the drive home with Zola the previous night. The structured list of things she needed to say was something that had been discarded from Version 59 of this spiel around 8:00 pm, but something she found she needed to reintroduce to keep herself on track and from yelling.

"One. Janet dropped Zola off with me last night. We've been granted temporary custody, and she spent the night here. That's why I left, as you so kindly pointed out, sixty-three messages on your phone. She's upstairs now. It's not my fault that you missed her first night here; I tried to contact you, and you obviously chose not to pick up." Damn, the list wasn't working and she was already snapping at him. She cleared her throat quietly to regain her composure before she tried again, her voice once again the picture of emotionless.

* * *

"Two. I'm sorry I screwed up your trial. I know you're mad, and I'm a little mad at myself, but I need you to understand why I did it. I know you see things in black and white, but I see things in shades of grey. And that was Adele's life that we had in our hands. Maybe we shouldn't have taken her on as a patient; or maybe that would have opened a whole other can of worms. The point is, there was no right way to go about this, and I apologize for my role in what happened." He knew this part would be coming; he knew one of them would need to bring up the trial. But he never thought it would be her.

In his experience, Meredith had always had difficulty suffering consequences, and would avoid them at all costs. Instead of dealing with her mother's illness and attitude towards her, she drowned herself. Instead of admitting that they needed to work on their relationship, she initiated a period of never-ending, feelings-free breakup sex. It was what Meredith did.

His eyes softened as he realized that his wife might just be changing for the better.

* * *

"Three. I would just like to point out, because it's kind of the big elephant in the room right now, that you ran. _You're_ the one who said, "No running." We _all_ knew who that line was directed at. But somehow, you're the one who, when the going got tough, ran away to spend the night at the Archfield, or your trailer, or some other ridiculous spot instead of at least on the couch here, if you couldn't stand to at least sleep in the same bed as me. And since we've had so many problems communicating and being open in the past, I would like to communicate the fact that I'm hurt." There. She was done.

He wasn't answering her, even as she stood, hands poised on her hips in a position of power, arching a threatening eyebrow at him expectantly. He was just sitting there, looking at her. He seemed puzzled, as if he hadn't expected her to notice he'd been gone.

"Your turn," she prompted finally.

* * *

He sighed, contemplating. He'd planned something, too, but it didn't seem appropriate anymore. What he had planned included a lot of yelling, and a lot of snapping, and a lot of talking about responsibility. But it turned out that she was actually right. There was no good way out of the situation, and they couldn't have done anything to stop Richard from asking them to put Adele in the trial, unless they didn't run the trial at all.

Which wasn't an option, either.

Because he didn't want to lose her.

So, on the fly, he decided to revise his speech. "I actually have... four things. One being that I'm sorry I missed Zola's first night. You're right, I was an idiot; I should have picked up my phone. Two, I forgive you for the trial. Obviously there will be consequences for not only the two of us but the whole hospital, and we will take those as they come. But as far as our personal relationship... you're my wife. That comes before my pride over a clinical trial. I understand that you think of things differently than I do; my mother went so far as to point it out when she came here. It was one of the many reasons she liked you so much. I was stupid to not see it before, and I definitely wasn't thinking when I insinuated that you'd be a bad mother. That's not true at all." His face softened, willing Meredith's to soften along with it. It wasn't. So he decided to plow on.

* * *

_Words_, she hissed to herself. _Stupid pretty words. _Why did he have to have such a way with words? She tried to be mad at him for everything – for yelling at her, for ditching her, for ignoring her calls. But she couldn't. Not when he was spewing pretty words and looking at her like that, pleading, and hoping.

"Three, I'm sorry that I ran and I'm sorry that I hurt you. For the sake of reference, I spent the night in the house. Well, not the house because there isn't really a house. I spent the night in the framework around Zola's room. I couldn't sleep in the trailer without you, it seemed so wrong. Not that the house was much less wrong, but it was a start. I'm truly sorry for hurting you and for breaking my vow, it wasn't my intention and I hope that you can forgive me. And four, I love you."

He was really laying on the McDreamy eyes now, those baby blues were filling with soft, emotional tears and making her melt inside. The sight of his puppydog face and disheveled hair, not to mention the hopeful look on his face eventually broke her down and she sagged against the counter, exhausted by the sheer effort of appearing angry.

"I guess I have a fourth thing, too. Well, that and I can't just let you one-up me like that. But I love you, too."

* * *

He finished his speech and raised his eyebrows, hoping beyond hope that she wasn't going to kick him out on his ass and throw his clothes out after him. He could see her trying to resist, and the sight broke his heart. He wanted to walk over there and fold her into his embrace, making her let her brain and heart stop going to war with each other. But he knew it was much better for both of them if he stayed where he was and let her come to terms with everything herself.

"I guess I have a fourth thing, too. Well, that and I can't just let you one-up me like that. But I love you, too."

His world blanked out a little bit for a moment, and everything seemed very white. For a second, he just basked in the relief of the fact that his marriage wasn't over. Then, he stood hesitantly and, reminding himself not to spook her too much, opened his arms.

* * *

He was standing there, opening his arms. He'd forgiven her. They were in the home stretch. All that was left was to let Richard take care of the professional impact, and everything would be back to normal. They would continue the adoption process, and in a few months they'd have a child, and would look back on this little snag and laugh at the universe's millionth attempt to drive them apart.

But first she had to overcome her lack of trust for him again.

This happened every time he left, every time he did anything that she could consider unnecessary and overkill. Which was often, considering his bad habit of becoming _mean_ when he was angry. And every time he came back, he wanted to hold her and kiss her head and apologize until the cows came home. And every time she let him.

But it was hard.

It was hard because, lingering in the back of her mind, was the thought of, "What if he leaves again? What if this is the last time I get to be in his arms?" And these thoughts tended to ruin the moment a little bit.

But they were married now. Things were different. This was married, happy Meredith. And married, happy Meredith didn't have trust issues. She had a happy marriage and make-up sex and hugs galore.

So, steeling herself with a deep breath and letting it out, she crossed the room, crossed the invisible barrier between the two of them, and stepped happily into his arms.

* * *

He watched, brow pursed upwards in hope, as she waged internal warfare with himself. Within seconds, he found himself praying to a deity of whose existence he was highly skeptical. _Please, please let her forgive me. I'll stop being mean when I get mad. I'll work on things. Just... please. I can't... I can't let her pull away from me anymore. _

He always hated this part – when he'd overstepped and gone too far and crossed a line, and she couldn't stand to look at him, to touch him. This was how he said he was sorry, by hugging someone, and, in Meredith's case, doing all of her favorite things. He couldn't lose their intimacy over... _this_.

Which is why it was a relief when he noticed that, while he'd been stewing this over in his mind, she'd come to terms with the situation, and made the move across the room to envelop herself in his warm embrace. He tightened his grip on her, encouraging her to relax into him, and allowing her to snuggle her nose into the crook between his shoulder and his neck.

This was how it was supposed to be.

* * *

She breathed in the smell of him with a deep breath and let it out, feeling the warmth reflect back onto her face. She had no choice but to relax into him the way she always did, it was a habit by now, formed by hundreds of embraces over the many years. He couldn't be allowed to think that this was a peace offering, though. He was still horrible for leaving her to take care of the baby all alone. _Horrible_, she tried to convince herself. Bad husband.

"You're not entirely out of the doghouse, you know that, right?" she muttered against his neck. Sure, she'd forgiven him a little (lot), but if you didn't punish them at the time of the occurrence, then they would never learn.

"Yes, dear," he murmured into her hair. Part of her knew that he was just trying to appease her, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

She pulled back a little to look him in the eye, meaning to make quite clear to him just how _not_ out of the doghouse he was. But he was so... he looked tired, and rumpled, and hopeful. And his eyes... his eyes were full of love.

* * *

She looked a little irritated still, but her expression dissolved within seconds of gazing at his face. He supposed he looked a little scary, with his shaggy, every-which-way hair and severe case of stubble, and was hoping she'd taken pity on him. It seemed she had, because her expression softened and she smiled softly at him.

"Do you want to see Zola now?"

He'd only half-heard what she said for his focus on her mouth. He suddenly found himself suppressing the urge to grab her and kiss her, hard. Though he didn't think she'd much appreciate his morning breath.

"Sorry, what?" He grinned sheepishly at her as she smirked.

"I asked if you wanted to see Zola." She started to pull further away, anticipating his answer, but he halted her with a gentle hand to the arm.

"No," he said softly, much to her surprise. At the shocked look on her face, he added hastily, "I want to kiss you, then I want to see Zola."

Her face softened even further (she seemed to have totally forgiven him now, a fact that he was increasingly grateful for as he considered the massive consequences that could have arisen from the situations) and she advanced towards him, meeting him halfway through the small distance they'd managed to put between them. His lips were mere millimeters from hers when a shrill cry rang out from the baby monitor attached to her waistband.

* * *

"I asked if you wanted to see Zola," she tried again. Much to his protestation, she pulled gently at his arms until he'd released her, and started for the stairs. Never did she think that his answer would be no.

But it was.

Her face collapsed a little, and she was sure her mouth was hanging open though she couldn't quite tell. Was this a sign? Was Zola now a reminder of a horrible memory? Did he not want her anymore? This would be a problem. She could forgive him spending the night in a nonexistent house and leaving her to spend the first night with the baby alone, but _this_?

He seemed flustered by her reaction and quickly cleared up the matter. "I want to kiss you," he clarified. "_Then_ I want to see Zola."

Smiling graciously, she stepped towards him and back into the comfort of his arms. Mmm, that felt good. That felt right.

But just as he was about to kiss her, the one thing she'd been craving since their fight in the conference room, a cry filled the room that she'd become very accustomed to in the past twelve hours or so. Both new parents leaped back, as if they'd been caught in the act.

"We're never going to have sex again, are we?" he asked, his joy at finally being a father outshining his despair at the loss of their more-than-healthy sex life.

"Mmmm, welcome home," Meredith smiled wryly, silently welcoming her back into the world he'd left.

Yeah, they were definitely going to be okay.

* * *

Derek gazed around the bedroom, which was only slightly brighter than the kitchen considering the blackout curtains Meredith had insisted they put up before Zola's arrival. Even though they had been partially opened, he assumed to watch and wait the previous night for his return home, they let in very little light, allowing Zola to sleep. His gaze flickered around the room that, twelve hours ago, he hadn't been sure he'd ever see again – unless she let him back in long enough to get his stuff.

His eyes snapped to Meredith, who was leaning over the edge of the crib, cooing incoherently to the now happily squirming baby inside. He felt his gaze soften at the sight, and he sighed contentedly. Just months ago, this would have been the end of them – until the next time they decided to have wildly inappropriate sex in a wildly inappropriate place.

But now, they were married, and they had a kid. A real, living breathing kid. And they'd fixed themselves. And everything was... he felt himself almost explode with a sudden rush of sheer emotion, and the leftover energy brought tears to his eyes.

But he still couldn't bring himself to take more than two steps into the room.

"Derek, can you hand me – ?" Meredith began as she finished changing Zola's diaper and turned to look for her favorite blanket. Her sentence didn't have an end, though, as she noticed Derek's obvious discomfort. "What are you doing all the way over there?"

* * *

Meredith finished pressing down the final tabs on Zola's newly clean diaper and smiled dazzlingly at the little girl, who returned the favor. A finger to her thigh, though, confirmed her suspicions that the baby was a tad colder than she should be, and she turned to remedy the situation.

"Derek, can you hand me – ?" she asked, looking for Zola's baby blanket. Her favorite, she'd come to find out during the night, when she refused to sleep unless the thing was within eyeshot. But her question remained unfinished because Derek, the one who everyone had always said was going to be _such _a great father, was standing awkwardly by the door frame, his arms crossed insecurely over his chest, as he gazed nervously upon the small frame in the crib. "What are you doing all the way over there?" she asked instead, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Derek sighed heavily and quickly, sounding more like a huff than an exhale, before answering. "What if she doesn't like me? I missed her first night in the house, that's not exactly father of the year material. I would hate _my_ dad if he picked a fight with my mom and didn't bother showing up to take care of me. Why shouldn't she?"

* * *

"Why shouldn't she?" It took all of Meredith's early-morning energy (which, this morning, was not much) to not laugh at his ludicrous self-doubt. But she saw the look on his face, so much like she was sure she'd looked way back when, when he was so much better at this than she was, and she kept herself in check. Instead, she turned to the crib and hoisted Zola out from under the arms. As soon as she turned her head and caught sight of Derek, she erupted with baby giggles and gurgles, a gummy smile breaking out across her face.

Meredith sighed, shaking her head, before letting a tiny portion of her mirth out long enough to smile reassuringly at Derek. "She had no way of knowing what was going on. She's ten months old, Derek. I doubt she even knew you were missing. And I hate to break it to you, but she's not our biological child. She's an orphan; I'm sure she's been shuttled around tons of foster homes. She doesn't know us as her parents yet. You're just the nice doctor that made her feel better, and I'm just your wife. We happen to be very nice people that are taking care of her, but she doesn't expect you to be here anymore than she would expect Alex or Arizona to be here. And you know as well as I do that she won't even remember this. You're a world-class neurosurgeon for God's sake." She smiled derisively at him, raising an eyebrow until she saw him visibly relax. It was only then that she let a tiny giggle bubble from her lips, eliciting a small quirk in the corner of his mouth. _There_ it was.

* * *

He listened to her speech, and gradually felt himself relax with each valid point she made. Zola had no way of knowing, and ten years down the line, she wasn't going to put down her fork at the dinner table, point a finger at him accusingly, and say, "You weren't here for my first night." They'd be a family eventually. And for now, he and Meredith would just have to try and convince Zola that they were, in fact, her parents.

That couldn't be too hard, could it?

Certainly not judging the adorable little grin he was getting from her at the moment.

He chuckled lightly, resisting the urge now to swipe Zola from Meredith's arms, and said, "You're going to be a great mom."

And where, in the past, Meredith would have blushed, shook her head, and protested his words, she simply replied, "I know."

And she kissed him.

But as soon as her lips had landed on his, they left, and her nose crinkled delicately in that way he'd loved since the night he met her.

"You have morning breath," she complained with a smirk. "And you can either take her for me or hand me that blanket from the top of the dresser there."

This time, he didn't hesitate to hoist his daughter from his wife's arms and snuggle her close to his chest. Meredith giggled at his expression as she moved to the dresser to retrieve the blanket, and the sound filled his heart with love.

They were finally a family.

_Fin_


End file.
